1

ALEX LOVES SILK. IF she lived in a colder country she would love furs as well, to say nothing of black leather. She delights in high heels—hers this evening are knock-offs of an Italian pair she saw in Vogue, size twelve, made by a talented pair of Christian Arab brothers whose workshop is a hole in the wall in Jaffa, not a virtual hole in the wall but a real hole in a real wall—just as she loves nylons, and jewelry, and perfume, and her collection of wigs that scream woman. Were it not for Alex’s profession, she wouldn’t mind growing her hair out, but the Israel Air Force frowns on its fighter pilots wearing theirs long enough to catch in the complex wiring of an F-16 helmet or, worse, tangling in the hundreds of miles of cable exposed when a pilot blasts out of the cockpit in an emergency ejection. This is why female pilots in the IAF wear their hair cropped short. But Alex does not quite fall into that category.

As it happens, Alex is the IAF’S leading ace, a pilot so skilled, her reflexes so honed that, simply in terms of physical abilities, the specific athletic attributes of a fighter pilot, he is the most perfect specimen the Israel Air Force has ever strapped into the seat of an F-16. Alex is as known for his leadership qualities as she is for her capacity to survive a 4-G power dive for three minutes without blacking out, and as admired for her guts as he is for her unique ability to choreograph and control a multiple jet fighter attack as though one brain were at the instruments of many aircraft.

She, he? His, hers? If this is confusing consider the effect two years earlier on General Motta Ben-Sheikh, commander of the IAF Fighter Academy, who happens one evening to be sitting with his wife in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Hilton entertaining relatives visiting from France, a yearly ritual that is never anything beyond familial obligation. General Ben-Sheikh’s people, originally from Morocco, chose different places of refuge when it became clear after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 that the Jewish community of Fez had no future in a Muslim country: most fled to Israel, many finding careers in the armed forces and police. The wealthier, however, emigrated to France, where seemingly without exception they prospered in the manufacture of women’s undergarments.

Whenever his Parisian cousins visit Israel Gen Al-Sheikh makes it a point to entertain them at the Hilton, a not so subtle indication that he in his way has done as well as they in theirs. And moreover that while the Al-Sheikhs of Paris, despite their wealth, will forever be outsiders in their adopted country, filthy Moroccans, second-class citizens in la belle France, the Al-Sheikhs of Tel Aviv are not second-class anything.

This particular evening, General Al-Sheikh finds himself looking past his garishly dressed nouveaux-riches relations to a woman seated at the bar with a group of equally young and stylish Israelis. From a distance he can just about make out their easy banter in colloquial Hebrew, and he tries to hear what this especially striking young woman is saying when he feels his wife kick him under the table. Hard.

“If you can take your eyes off that cheap bitch for a moment, I wouldn’t be the only one having to carry on this stupid conversation with your vapid relatives,” he hears her say in Hebrew, using a tone meant to suggest something on the order of Darling, do you think we should order dinner now or have another round of drinks? Which is precisely how she explains the veiled reprimand to her husband’s non-Hebrew-speaking relations.

For answer, General Al-Sheikh excuses himself, walks over to the bar, and without so much as a pardon-me asks of the young lady, “Miss, do I know you? You seem awfully familiar.”

In reply the young lady rises from her barstool, stands straight and elegant in her four-inch heels—and salutes.

“Captain Alex Shabbati, sir!” she barks. “You taught me everything I know about aerial combat, sir!”

The good general, who through three wars and countless hours in the sky thought he had seen it all, shakes his head with an uncommon briskness, as though shaking off a mosquito. “Clearly, captain, not everything.”

Within forty-eight hours, the problem is bucked up to the head of Fighter Command, then to the commanding general of the IAF, then to the IDF chief of staff, then to the minister of defense, before it lands with an unwelcome thud on the desk of the prime minister herself, who runs her eyes over the single paragraph labeled Issue attached to Major Shabbati’s military biography and security summary.

“Must I read the whole thing or can you spit it out?” she says with her usual impatience. Shula Amit can be charming, but rarely wastes this talent on subordinates.

The defense minister clears his throat. “Simply put, when not in uniform our ranking ace dresses as a woman.”

The prime minister examines the photos in the file. “Quite fashionably too.”

“Madam Prime Minister, the defense establishment does not find this to be a laughing matter.”

“Who’s laughing? This suit is classic Dior—probably a knockoff, but still...”

“Nor do I find it—”

“Though the purse is way too big. A delicate outfit like this...”

“Madam—”

“Then again, doubtless he carries his service pistol in it. Dior never had that problem.” She offers a lethal smile that vanishes immediately. “Why is this on my desk? Can’t you people deal with something so small? No, tiny. Miniscule. You are the defense minister, are you not?”

“There may be political ramifications, madam. Sacking the man would put us in a bad light. If he went to the press we’d never hear the end of it—”

“Gays are not barred from serving in the military. As you well know, one of our leading generals is as pink as a Mediterranean sunset.”

“Major Shabbati isn’t gay.”

The PM lifts one of the photos. “With such a tuchus?”

“He’s as straight as I am.”

“I’ll take that for what it’s worth. Look, Duvvid, is there some reason he shouldn’t serve? Has he suddenly forgotten how to—what was it the newspapers said about him?—knock an apple out of the sky at four hundred miles an hour? The man isn’t thirty and he’s a legend. If he is still—”

“The best, yes. No question.”

“So?”

“He goes to bars this way, restaurants. Dances with foreigners. They could be spies.”

“I dance with foreigners. Every one of us does. The head of the Navy sleeps with a Bulgarian with tits he is apparently ready to die for, though we both know she works for us. Incidentally, they’re fake. What then is the problem?”

“The Air Force believes such behavior may be detrimental to morale.”

“Whose?”

“The men under his command. Presumably.”

“Presumably?” the prime minister asks. “You’ve taken a poll? Look, we’re at the edge of an historic moment. In a matter of weeks, perhaps days, we may finally have a breakthrough with the cousins.” As is common in Israel, she uses the Hebrew term for the entire Arab race, who as sons of Abraham are genetically related to the Jews. “Is it so important that one of our flyboys, even the best of them, dresses, shall we say, more elegantly than expected? He does his job. Why don’t you and your subordinates in uniform simply do yours?”

“The brass wish to sack him. I think they’re right.”

“And I think that if we go around sacking people who in their non-working hours do odd things, then we might as well be Saudi Arabia. Put another way, you sack Major Shabbati and I will sack the entire Air Force command, and you with them. Now was there something else, or can I return to leading this country into a new era of continuing prosperity and, hopefully, peace?”

“I shall make your decision known to the Chief of Staff.”

“Thank you,” the prime minister says. “And if you can find out who is his dressmaker, I really would like to know.”